RE: grrp-reqs-06, 9. Internationalization Considerations

["Hollenbeck, Scott" <shollenbeck@verisign.com>]

Eric,

Instead of waiting for the alternative text I requested from you for 9-[1],
I've looked into rewriting it completely.  How does this strike you?:

[1] [RFC1035] restricts the encoding of Internet host and domain names in
the DNS to a subset of the 7-bit US-ASCII character set.  More recent
standards, such as [RFC2130] and [RFC2277], describe the need to develop
protocols for an international Internet.  These and other standards MUST be
considered during the protocol design process to ensure world-wide usability
of a generic registry registrar protocol.

<Scott/>

-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine
[mailto:brunner@nic-naa.net]
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 11:12 AM
To: ietf-provreg@cafax.se
Cc: deng@pier.cnnic.net.cn; zwh6810@yahoo.com
Subject: grrp-reqs-06, 9. Internationalization Considerations



  [1] Current Internet standards restrict the encoding of Internet host
  and domain names to a subset of the 7-bit US-ASCII character set.

Lets be specific, rfc1035, and 0x2d,0x30-0x39,0x41-0x5a,0x6a-0x7a.
                                -      0-9       A-Z       a-z
We may as well mention ASCII case folding, 1035 has a reasonable Note
at the end of 2.3.1 Preferred name syntax.

  Registries and registrars now serve customers whose native languages
  require encodings other than US-ASCII, which automatically disallows  
  use of those languages when registering host and domain names.

Awkward language, what is it that "which" refers to? The "US-ASCII"
restricition, first sentence. If the subordinate clause is phrased
as a sentence ... 

  Support for internationalized host and domain names will greatly
  increase world-wide usability of a generic registry registrar
  protocol, so standards for exchanging internationalized information
  MUST be considered during the protocol design process.

Apple pie, but we don't actually state (or cite) what "internationalized"
means, yet, and the jump from "host and domain names" (technical data) to
social data (a subset of) "internationalized information" is left as an
exercise to the reader.

We could state:

	a. The protocol will support any encoding of technical and/or
	   social data, (code-set independent, or csi)
or
	b. The protocol will support some encodings (list) of technical
	   data, and some, possibly different, encodings (list) of social
	   data, (code-set dependent, or csd)
or
	c. The protocol will not support some encodings (list) of
	   technical data, and will not support some, possibly different,
	   encodings (list) of social data,

From Deng Xiang's response we know that UTF8 encodings of technical data
is a requirement of a provreg protocol deployed by the .CN ccTLD Registry
and Registrars.

It is possible that the range of encodings for social data includes GBK
and Big5 as well as UTF8.

[snip]